


Seeing Red

by malachibi



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, also a bunch of the Amis are genderswapped, background Bahorel/laughing mistress, background E/R sort of, background Feuilly/Jehan, background Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2523029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachibi/pseuds/malachibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac starts seeing colour during her first visit to Les Amis - the problem is, she's not sure whose eyes she met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user spookyfeuilly.

Courfeyrac stops at an empty store, eyeing her reflection in the window quickly.

You still look fine, she reminds herself, and turns away, walking faster now.

Tonight, she's giving a presentation to one of the student groups on campus, and she's determined to look her best.

Les Amis is a group that seems, at the core, to be very similar to her own group. It'd be nice if they were similarly motivated and argued the same issues, because then they could just combine into an off-campus group instead of having one off-campus group and one school-affiliated group.

As it is, Les Amis meet off-campus anyways, at the Cafe Musain, which is where she's headed now.

As if her thoughts have called it into being, it's there as soon as she turns the next corner, advertised by a faded-looking sign.

She squares her shoulders, smooths her skirt, and walks in.

Enjolras, the boy who'd invited her to speak her, is waiting just inside the doorway, and smiles as he sees her.

“Courfeyrac,” he greets.

“Enjolras,” she replies. “Long time no see,” she adds, though it's been mere hours since they shared their Intro to Comparative Politics class.

He nods, and skips any remaining small talk. “Everyone's here – I asked them to get here early, so they wouldn't be walking in while you were talking. There's a podium I usually give reports from, and you're welcome to use it. You said you don't need any sort of equipment, right?”

“I'm a drama minor. I know how to project,” she assures him, and he nods again.

“Then let's get started.”

Courfeyrac follows him into the room, where there's an assortment of people sitting around tables and chatting.

It takes only seconds for Enjolras to get their attention – he clears his throat, introduces her, and then goes to sit at one of the tables.

She moves to the podium, setting her notes down, and begins her presentation.

“Hey guys, I'm here at Enjolras' request to talk to you about the invisibility and erasure of certain sexualities. I understand your concentration right now is on the legalization of marriage for everyone, with a side-focus on rights for trans people, so he figured I'd bring in a new viewpoint,” she explains, taking a moment to meet the eyes of everyone in her audience.

It's a speech tactic, to make everyone think you're speaking directly to them, and it's enough of a habit for her that she doesn't even realize she's done it until she consults an article she’s quoting a minute or two later and sees that the picture on the side isn’t in greyscale.

She's not sure what, exactly, it is, but it's not greyscale.

She pauses in her speech, grabbing onto the podium for support, and looks out at the audience again.

Nobody's in black and white. Everyone has strange new colours, and she has a book of colours at home waiting for her for just this eventuality, but she hadn't expected it here.

There must be at least 20 people here. And one of them... one of them must be her soulmate.

“Courfeyrac?” Enjolras asks, starting to stand up.

She shakes her head. “Sorry,” she offers, and forces a smile. “Lost my train of thought.”

A quick consult of her notes reminds her where she's supposed to be, and she picks back up, trying to pretend nothing has happened.

Once she's done, Enjolras takes over the podium, and she settles in one of the seats near the middle, between a tall, gangly boy and a tiny brunette.

Could one of them be her soulmate?

She thinks she's going to have to force herself to pay attention to Enjolras, but as soon as he gets going, she's captivated.

Courfeyrac has studied all the tricks and cheats of speech-giving, but Enjolras doesn't need them. They come to him naturally, filled with passion and conviction.

She's almost forgotten her little problem by the time he's done.

When he steps down to join the tables of people, it seems to signal a break time, where people turn and chat to everyone else, so Courfeyrac joins in, eager to find out about the people around her.

“Courfeyrac, right?” the gangly boy says.

“That's me!” she agrees cheerfully.

“I'm Jehan,” he offers, “and on your other side there is Bahorel. We liked your speech,” he adds.

“Thanks,” she replies with a grin.

“And Jehan likes your sweater. Nice shade of blue,” Bahorel comments from her other side.

Blue, she thinks, looking down at her sweater. So Bahorel has gotten colour, and knows the names already. Probably, Bahorel is not her soulmate.

Jehan still might be on the table, though.

“I like your sweater too, Jehan,” she offers, beaming at him. “It matches nicely with your pants.”

Bahorel doubles over laughing at that, but Jehan just returns her smile.

“Thank you. Bahorel doesn't appreciate my pants like you do. She's not so fond of pink.”

“Yeah, that's the problem,” Bahorel laughs. “Oh, Ferre's talking, shhh.”

Courfeyrac turns her attention back to the front, where another boy is standing at the podium and waiting for everyone's attention.

He gets it just as fast as Enjolras does, just by raising his eyebrows at someone in the back, and then consults his notes.

“I have the results of a few things from last meeting,” he starts, and then goes into a series of explanations involving people she doesn't know and events she hasn't attended.

She'll pick up on those later, she decides, and scans the room quickly.

There's no looking behind her without being rude to the speaker, but she recalls some of the people back there well enough to recognize them later, she thinks.

As for the people in front of her, there's Enjolras, of course. His shirt matches the hair of the girl sitting next to him, and the boy next to that girl is one she recognizes - Marius, who’d come along with her for moral support. Cosette, sitting on Marius’ other side, has hair nearly the same shade as Enjolras’, and the girl next to her has darker hair.

Any one of these people could be her soulmate, she thinks, and sighs quietly. And, to make things worse, the person probably noticed the colours before she did. Her soulmate probably knows exactly who she is, and if they don't come up to her by the end of the night...

Well, she'll deal with that if it comes to that.

When the man at the podium is done, the meeting seems to be over – Enjolras turns to the girl next to him as the two girls in front of Courfeyrac start talking quietly, so she scans the room and then turns to look behind her.

Some people are leaving now, and she bites her lip as she watches them go. Hopefully, none of them are the one she's looking for.

The ones in the back - those who are staying - are all crowded around one table. There's enough space for her to scoot her chair in, and so she does.

The girl with darker hair blinks at her, surprised, but the other girl at the table smiles.

“Hi. I'm Musichetta,” the girl offers, and points to the dark-haired girl. “This is R.”

“And I'm Joly,” one of the boys adds, “and the handsome bald one here is Bossuet.”

Courfeyrac takes the hint – the boys are clearly soulbound, then.

“Nice to meet you all,” she offers cheerily. “So, is this about your regular turnout?”

“More or less. The people who left already have been coming for a couple meetings now – Enjolras thinks they're interested, but I think they just show up for the drinks,” R replies with a shrug.

“They seemed interested enough when I was talking,” Cour notes.

“They did,” Musichetta agrees. “This is R’s job - she thinks the worst of people.”

“That's me,” R agrees.

“Not everything is as black and white as believers and non-believers, R,” Joly points out.

“I wish everything was still black and white for me,” R sighs. “I'm gonna get a refill, anyone else?”

Joly and Bossuet raise their hands, and R heads for the bar.

Courfeyrac watches her go, and then turns back to her tablemates. “She's bonded, then?”

The three trade a look. “Some people... don't work out. The bonds aren't perfect, no matter what the media would have you believe,” Musichetta explains.

“Most do, though!” Joly adds, reaching for Musichetta's hand. “I mean, if we didn't have ours, we might not have thought... well. I'm glad it worked out this way, for us.”

Cour tilts her head. “All three of you are bonded?”

The three nod, and Joly beams. “Yeah. Bossuet and I have known each other since we were in high school, and we just thought we were colourblind. Until we met Musichetta, that is.”

“Is everyone here bonded?” Cour wonders, trying to keep her tone casual.

“Um, Feuilly is... she's the redhead talking to Enjolras. I don't know who she's bonded to – we don't normally talk bonds at meetings, because Enjolras isn't fond of them. Bahorel and Jehan too, I think, because they've commented on colours before. Cosette, she's too colour-coordinated not to be, which probably means Marius too. I don't know about anyone else,” Bossuet offers.

She commits the names to memory. “That's neat, that so many people have found their soulmates so young, though.”

“It is,” Joly agrees with a smile.

“Back,” R comments, setting a tray of drinks down before picking one glass up. “I think Enjolras is looking for you, Courfeyrac.”

She twists to look, and sure enough, he's scanning the room, smiling when he sees her.

“I'd better go, then,” she decides. “Thanks for the chat.”

“Any time,” Musichetta replies.

She stands, moving over to Enjolras' table, and he nods a greeting.

“I liked your speech,” he offers. “These are my right-hand people – this is Combeferre, who keeps track of the meetings and attendance.”

“Nice to meet you,” Combeferre offers, and she nods. He was the man giving the speech after Enjolras, she recalls.

“And this is Feuilly. She does a lot of behind the scenes work for us.”

“Which makes me sound far more important than I am,” Feuilly laughs. “I just do some minor things.”

“It's not at all minor. It's very important work,” Enjolras insists.

“It is,” Combeferre agrees, smiling at Feuilly, and when she flushes a bit and looks down at the table, Courfeyrac takes note.

So Joly and Musichetta and Bossuet are bonded to each other, Jehan and Bahorel and R are bonded to unknown people, and Feuilly and Combeferre are probably bonded to each other, she thinks.

That leaves her very few options, especially since she also knows it's not Enjolras.

“So if you're in charge of attendance, does that mean you might have a list of contact information for everyone here?” Courfeyrac wonders, propping her chin up with one hand as she looks at Combeferre.

He blinks, looking mildly flustered. “I suppose I do, though whether I can give you a copy is under question. What do you need it for?”

“Well, I was hoping to recruit a little by coming here. It'd be nice to have a starting place,” she replies, giving him her brightest smile.

Now it's him who's flushing, and she reminds herself that Feuilly's sitting right there. Less flirting, she thinks firmly.

“I'll send that list over as soon as I can. I'll get your contact information--” he starts, and looks at Enjolras.

“I have it,” Enjolras agrees.

“Then we're all set,” Courfeyrac decides, nodding. “If you're ever interested in talking to my group, E, let me know,” she offers, and stands up.

Last chance for my soulmate to come up to me, she thinks, and pauses for a second to collect her notes.

Nobody comes up – nobody says anything besides her tablemates, who wish her a good night, and so Courfeyrac heads out of the cafe, her newly-coloured world feeling awfully drab.

\--

Combeferre’s efficient - she gets her list of people by her pre-bed email check, and she adds some to her contacts, texting a few who she thinks might actually be interested in being recruited.

Musichetta texts back the next day, asking if she can come visit, and Cour gladly accepts.

She’s not even terribly surprised when there are three people on her doorstep instead of one.

She’d only gotten the chance to clean up a little bit before they’d arrived, but they seem content to sit on the cleared-off couch, so she doesn’t worry about the rest of the room.

“So, did you like our meeting enough to go back?” Musichetta wonders. 

“Maybe, but I do have my own group to run,” Courfeyrac reminds.

“Maybe we should combine!” Bossuet offers. “You and Enjolras could co-lead.”

“But whose name would we take?” Joly wants to know.

“Combine ‘em! Maybe a portmanteau?” Bossuet asks.

“Well, we’re Les Amis, you’re the ABC, so maybe... AmisBC?” Chetta suggests.

“ABC Amis?” Cour tries.

“Oh, I haven’t seen one of these for years,” Joly interrupts, and Cour looks over to see him picking up one of her colour books.

“Me neither! Not since we bonded with Chetta, anyways,” Bossuet agrees.

“Did you recently bond?” Musichetta wonders.

Courfeyrac shrugs. “Sort of. I think we missed each other in a crowd.”

Joly makes a face. “That’s the worst. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll survive,” Cour assures him. “There are groups for people who have lost their bond in one way or another, I’ll just date within that group. How about the ABC of Friends?”

“Nah,” Joly decides, and shrugs. “Hey, want to go to lunch?” 

Courfeyrac accepts gladly, and they leave her apartment arm-in-arm.

\--

“So,” Cour starts, sliding into the empty half of the booth, “any interest in joining up with my group?”

R laughs. “Sorry. My reasons for being in Les Amis don’t transfer.”

“That’s fair,” Cour nods. “You want to help me figure out who else might be interested?”

“Sure,” R agrees. “Who were you interested in?”

“Bahorel,” Courfeyrac decides.

“Bahorel... could be convinced pretty easily. She has the devil-may-care attitude I tend to adopt, but she’s also very much in agreement with both the Amis and with your group, I think. If you have meetings on Mondays or Wednesdays, she’ll be even easier to convince, ‘cause her girlfriend will come.”

“Is that a soulbond?” 

“She’s Bahorel’s soulmate, yeah. She’s awesome, you’ll love her - she laughs at all my jokes, even the really terrible ones.”

Well, that means Bahorel and Jehan aren’t together, and she erases one of the lines in her mental map of Les Amis.

“Have you found yours?” she wonders, curious about the story.

R sighs, resting her head on her crossed arms. “Let’s talk about someone else.”

Cour nods and changes the subject.

\--

Sure enough, when she starts her next meeting, Bahorel’s sitting near the back, and Cour smiles briefly at her.

When the meeting is over, she checks in quickly with Marius and then straddles the chair in front of Bahorel.

“Hey!” Bahorel greets. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“Thanks for coming!”

“Oh, hey, this is my girlfriend, Leni,” Bahorel adds. “She liked your speech on child marriages.”

“I did,” says the blonde sitting next to Bahorel. “I heard you were as good as Enjolras when it came to making passionate speeches, and though I haven’t gotten to see him much, I think it’s probably true.”

“I try,” Cour agrees with a grin. “If you aren’t good enough to convince some students, how can you expect to make any real change in the world?”

“You can’t,” Bahorel guesses.

“Oh, but we can,” Leni laughs.

“I like her,” Cour decides. “You’re coming to my next meeting, right?”

“Sure,” Leni agrees for both of them.

\--

“So,” Cour starts, settling on her chair. “First off, thanks for meeting me here.”

“No problem,” Combeferre assures her. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Well, I wanted to make sure it’s okay to steal some of your members, for one. For another, I’m curious about some things, and you seem like the man with all the answers.”

“I don’t know about all the answers, but... as to your first question, we don’t mind. Actually, we’ve been hearing suggestions that we should attempt to combine our groups.”

“It’s not a terrible idea, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet,” Cour replies.

“Fair enough. What were your other questions?”

“Well... I was wondering about R, for one thing.”

“Grantaire? What about her?” Combeferre wonders.

“Grantaire?” Cour repeats.

“She probably only introduced herself as R, but... it’s a pun, basically. She prefers Grantaire - her last name - to her first name, and R’s a nickname derived from that. But I digress.”

“No, it’s fine. I just wondered... she has a soulmate, right?”

“In a matter of speaking. Soulmates... they don’t always work out.”

Funny, Cour thinks, because his seems to be working out just fine. Still, she doesn’t interrupt - this story feels too important to get distracted from.

“So she didn’t work out with her soulmate?”

“She’s... she has a very different outlook on life than her soulmate. While I am not trying to say either is in the wrong, both think they are very much in the right. Would there, perhaps, be a possibility of working things out? Yes, I think so, but not right now. Not how they are now.”

“You know her soulmate, then,” Courfeyrac realizes. 

“I do. And you do, as well.”

Courfeyrac frowns, running through the list of Amis in her head. “Well, it’s not the trio, or Bahorel, or Feuilly... Jehan?”

“Close. Same hair colour, and even nearly the same length.”

Cour runs through her list again, and then pauses. “Really? I haven’t gotten to know R well, but I can’t imagine her being Enjolras’ soulmate.”

“And yet, they both undeniably are bonded. Much as they’d like to think it was a mistake, there was no possibility of error. They were alone in a room when it happened.”

“Hmm. Well, I guess sometimes things just don’t work out,” Cour sighs. 

Combeferre matches her sigh, eyes fixed on the table. “I guess they don’t.”

“But hey, the other question I had,” Cour remembers. “Do you have the source for the article you quoted last meeting?”

“Ah, yes I do,” Combeferre agrees, brightening a bit.

Once he’s cited it to her satisfaction, they start arguing the point, going back and forth, and it’s only when the chairs start to go up at the tables around them that Courfeyrac realizes they’ve been there long enough that the place is closing.

“We should probably get going,” she comments. “But hey, maybe we could have coffee some time and keep talking?”

Combeferre smiles. “Sure, we can do that.”

\--

If he wasn’t bonded, Courfeyrac thinks, this trip to the coffee shop would feel a lot like a date.

(It’s not, she reminds herself. Don’t treat it like one.)

She’d done her best to keep her outfit casual, and she thinks she’d mostly succeeded.

They both show up with a pile of books, and she grins.

“Ready to cite your sources?” she asks.

“Any time,” he agrees, smiling back.

They argue amiably for a while, pausing once to refill their coffees, and finally stopping when Courfeyrac holds a lighter up to Combeferre’s copy of the charter.

“Alright,” Combeferre laughs. “I’d better take me and my books away before you get angry about another one,” he teases.

“Probably,” she agrees, unrepentant.

“That and I’m supposed to meet Feuilly at the Musain in a half-hour. But I’ll talk to you later, right? Let me know when you’re free.”

Her mirth disappears, much faster than it had come. “Right. Yeah, I’ll text you or something,” she agrees, and concentrates on gathering up her stuff rather than watching him go.

\--

Her next attempt at recruiting is Feuilly, who has been a little harder to get a hold of.

Courfeyrac would think the constant “sorry I’m working” excuses were just to get out of seeing her, except that Enjolras had confirmed that Feuilly works three jobs.

Finally, though, she’d managed to steal a half-hour of what must be very precious free time. Partly, she suspects, it’s because it came with an offer to buy the redhead lunch.

Feuilly is precisely on time, sliding into the free side of the booth Cour has claimed and offering a quick smile. 

“Hey,” Cour greets. “I like your headband.”

Feuilly reaches up to touch it, and her smile widens a bit. “Ah, yeah. It was a present from when I bonded with my soulmate - once he could see colours, he wanted to get me something that looked good with red.”

Combeferre would be that nice, too.

“It does look good,” Courfeyrac agrees, propping her chin up on a hand. “So. Judging by how hard it was to see you outside of an Amis meeting, I’m guessing the ABCs are right out?”

“Bahorel said you had meetings Mondays, right? I’m off every other Monday night, so I could try,” Feuilly muses. “But it would be handy if you and Enjolras combined groups, I’d admit.”

“It’s a possibility,” Cour nods. “It might be nice. Enjolras is nice, but I think Marius is terrified of him, so... it’d be an interesting mesh.”

Feuilly laughs. “That it would be,” she agrees.

\--

It’s only two days after she’s met with Feuilly that she meets her next recruit - though this meeting wasn’t planned.

“Courfeyrac!” Jehan greets, beaming at her. “How are you?”

“Not bad, not bad. And you?”

“Today’s a good day,” Jehan decides. “He pronouns today.”

Courfeyrac nods her agreement, filing that away for future reference. “I meant to talk to you, actually.”

“Sorry, I don’t think I can come without my soulmate along,” Jehan explains, though he brightens a bit at the mention of his soulmate.

“Ah, well. You can always grab my info from Enjolras if your soulmate ends up able to come?” Courfeyrac offers.

“And you can always drop by our meetings to say hi,” Jehan agrees, frowning at an apple before adding it to his bag. “I know they’ve been missing you there.”

“Well, I’ve grabbed a couple people and gotten them to come to my meetings, so I see them.”

“True,” Jehan nods. “Anyways, I’d better get home - Feuilly’ll be home soon, and she’s always hungry when she gets home from work.”

“Ah, sounds good. I’ll see you later,” Courfeyrac offers, and waves goodbye.

It’s two aisles later when that sentence catches up with her, and she pauses as she reaches for a can of peaches.

Why does Feuilly live with Jehan?

\--

“Enjolras, can we talk really quick after class?” Courfeyrac wonders.

He nods, looking puzzled. “Sure.”

With the anticipation of that conversation building, it’s hard to pay attention, but she takes good notes to make sure she still remembers the material when she goes back to study it.

Once the teacher dismisses the class, she turns immediately to Enjolras.

“Is Feuilly having problems with her soulmate?”

Enjolras frowns and shakes his head. “Not that I know of. They’ve had a good relationship since day one - Feuilly is good for her, and she’s good for Feuilly. Why?”

“Wait, wait. Feuilly’s soulmate is a he.”

“She might have been, when you talked to her or Feuilly,” Enjolras supposes. 

“I-- what?”

“Jehan’s genderqueer. I thought she told you.”

“Jehan. Jehan’s Feuilly’s soulmate,” Courfeyrac repeats.

Enjolras gives her an odd look. “Yes, of course.”

Courfeyrac shoves her notes into her bag, standing quickly. “I have to go.”

“Bye,” Enjolras offers as she runs out the door.

\--

Five minutes later, she’s knocking on the door to one of the quiet rooms in the library.

Combeferre, sitting inside, looks mildly surprised to see her, but he lets her in anyways.

“I have to ask you a question because I kind of want it to be true and I thought you might know but if you don’t I don’t know who else to ask and it might be too late,” Courfeyrac says as soon as she’s shut the door behind her.

Combeferre places a bookmark in his book and closes it, giving her his full attention.

Cour paces for another moment or two, even though the room doesn’t offer much space to do so, and then stops to take a deep breath. “Okay. So I got confused at the first meeting - I thought people who weren’t soulmates were soulmates, and... I bonded at that meeting, and the only person I wanted to bond with was already taken. I thought. Might still be taken.”

She’s babbling, but she thinks Combeferre understands her anyways.

“So you mistook your potential bondmate for already bonded with another woman. And then you found out that she was already bonded,” Combeferre guesses.

“I did,” Courfeyrac agrees, nodding. “I don’t know if he’s already bonded, though.”

“There’s an easy way to find out,” he offers.

She looks around, and then picks up a book with a red cover. “What colour’s this?”

He blinks at her, and then smiles a bit. “It’s red.”

“So you are bonded,” she concludes, shoulders slumping.

“As far as I’m aware, I’ve been bonded for about two weeks.”

She stares at him, doing the math.

“At the meeting where you gave your speech,” he adds, eyes fixed on hers.

“Me?” she asks.

“You,” he agrees. “I thought... well, it’s not important.”

“No, it is,” Courfeyrac insists, dropping into the spare chair in the room.

Combeferre pushes his glasses up as he thinks, and then he nods. 

“You know about Enjolras and Grantaire - I believe I was the one who told you.”

“Yeah.”

“It made me aware that not all soulmates work out. When you didn’t mention anything after we bonded... I assumed you already had a significant other, and didn’t want to bring a soulmate into your life.”

“That... is definitely not true.”

“I’m glad,” he admits, “The more I got to know you, the less I wanted to believe that.”

She beams at him, and then reaches for one of his books. 

“I’ll study with you,” she decides.

“One condition,” he replies, and she raises an eyebrow, waiting. “Your lighter stays in your pocket.”

She laughs. “Deal,” she agrees, and smiles as she opens her selected book.

\--

“I’m Enjolras, this is Courfeyrac, and... as most of you know... this is the first meeting of Les Amis de l’ABC, our newly combined group.”

Courfeyrac smiles wide at the name they’d decided upon, late last night, and looks over at Combeferre as he squeezes her hand briefly.

He just smiles, thumb brushing along her skin, and she returns both smile and touch before looking back at Enjolras.

“Meetings will be on Mondays and Thursdays now, to allow for those who can only attend on certain days,” Enjolras continues, and Courfeyrac nods along. “If you have any questions, they can be directed to either of us, or to Combeferre and Feuilly, who will be helping us run things.”

Courfeyrac had tried to get Marius to be on their council as well, but he’d been more than happy to bow out and leave it to them. He’s content to stay in the audience, and it only takes her a brief sweep of the audience to find him.

He gives her a reassuring smile, and she arranges the notecards in her hands, smiling back. 

The groups have merged fairly easily, she’s found her soulmate, and everything is good, she decides, and steps up to the podium.

\--


End file.
